Getting started¶

Oemof stands for “Open Energy System Modelling Framework” and provides a free, open source and clearly documented toolbox to analyse energy supply systems. It is developed in Python and designed as a framework with a modular structure containing several packages which communicate through well defined interfaces.

With oemof we provide base packages for energy system modelling and optimisation.

Everybody is welcome to use and/or develop oemof. Read our Why should I contribute? section.

Contribution is already possible on a low level by simply fixing typos in oemof’s documentation or rephrasing sections which are unclear. If you want to support us that way please fork the oemof repository to your own github account and make changes as described in the github guidelines: https://guides.github.com/activities/hello-world/

Documentation
Installing oemof
Structure of the oemof cosmos
Examples
Got further questions on using oemof?
Join the developers!
Keep in touch
Citing oemof
License

Documentation ¶

Full documentation can be found at readthedocs. Use the project site of readthedocs to choose the version of the documentation. Go to the download page to download different versions and formats (pdf, html, epub) of the documentation.

To get the latest news visit and follow our website.

Installing oemof ¶

If you have a working Python3 environment, use pypi to install the latest oemof version. Python >= 3.5 is recommended. Lower versions may work but are not tested.

pip install oemof

For more details have a look at Installation and setup. There is also a YouTube tutorial on how to install oemof under Windows.

The packages feedinlib, demandlib and oemof.db have to be installed separately. See section Using oemof for more details about all oemof packages.

If you want to use the latest features, you might want to install the developer version. See Developing oemof for more information. The developer version is not recommended for productive use.

Structure of the oemof cosmos ¶

Oemof packages are organised in different levels. The basic oemof interfaces are defined by the core libraries (network). The next level contains libraries that depend on the core libraries but do not provide interfaces to other oemof libraries (solph, outputlib). The third level are libraries that do not depend on any oemof interface and therefore can be used as stand-alone application (demandlib, feedinlib). Together with some other recommended projects (pvlib, windpowerlib) the oemof cosmos provides a wealth of tools to model energy systems. If you want to become part of it, feel free to join us.

Examples ¶

The linkage of specific modules of the various packages is called an application (app) and depicts for example a concrete energy system model. You can find a large variety of helpful examples in oemof’s example repository on github to download or clone. The examples show optimisations of different energy systems and are supposed to help new users to understand the framework’s structure. There is some elaboration on the examples in the respective repository.

You are welcome to contribute your own examples via a pull request or by sending us an e-mail (see here for contact information).

Got further questions on using oemof?¶

If you have questions regarding the use of oemof you can visit the forum at: https://forum.openmod-initiative.org/tags/c/qa/oemof and open a new thread if your questions hasn’t been already answered.

Join the developers!¶

A warm welcome to all who want to join the developers and contribute to oemof. Information on the details and how to approach us can be found in the documentation .

Keep in touch ¶

You can become a watcher at our github site, but this will bring you quite a few mails and might be more interesting for developers. If you just want to get the latest news you can follow our news-blog at oemof.org.

Citing oemof ¶

The core ideas of oemof are described in DOI:10.1016/j.esr.2018.07.001 (preprint at arXiv:1808.0807). To allow citing specific versions of oemof, we use the zenodo project to get a DOI for each version. Select the version you want to cite.

License ¶

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.